Ashmore Group is pinning its hopes on diversifying its client base after posting a 34% drop in profits for the full year ending June 30.

Ashmore London

Group finance director Tom Shippey blamed the results on the pound’s strong showing after net profits fell to £133.4 million in the 12 months ended June, down from £201.6 million a year earlier.

“The financial performance has been impacted by the strength of sterling,” he said, singling out the rise in the pound against the dollar for its impact upon revenues. Looking beyond FX changes, “the financial performance is sound,” Shippey told Financial News.

Shippey said the company was now focussed on “broadening out the types of clients to whom we sell products” by building a wholesale intermediary client base designed to bolster business via private banks and wealth managers.

Shippey said the group had made “good progress” with this strategy throughout the year, adding that assets under management had been “resilient” despite falling from $77.4 billion to $75 billion at the end of June 2014.

He added that almost a third of new capital comes from emerging market customers, who often prefer to be invested in their own countries.

“Historically, we were an investor of developed market capital that wanted to take emerging market risk,” Shippey said. “Now, almost a third of the capital that we manage comes from clients within the emerging markets.

"We are well placed to offer a broader range of products to them,” he said.